Database replication is the process of copying data from a source database to replica databases. This makes data more accessible and improves system fault-tolerance and reliability. Database replication software makes it easier for IT teams and DBAs to duplicate selected database objects and data in order to maintain separate instances of a database for scaling out resource-intensive workloads or improving system availability and resilience. Database replication software can also be used as a database migration tool to upgrade or replace existing servers, distribute and synchronize data across remote offices or users, or consolidate and feed data into a data warehouse or data mart.

If equipped with change data capture technology, database replication software can be employed to create and update a real-time data warehouse, facilitate zero-downtime database migrations, and implement continuous data integration across the enterprise.

Choosing a Database Replication Software Solution

If you're in the market for database replication software, then likely you know the answers to basic questions like "what is data replication?" and you know want you want to accomplish with a data replication tool. But because it's a constantly evolving marketplace, you might not know what differentiates best-of-breed solutions from the rest. Although some database vendors provide embedded replication technology, many firms choose to leverage third-party database replication software solutions because of useful features like these:

• Database-agnosticism: Allowing you to replicate data to and from a wide variety of databases and other platforms—including providing support for cloud data replication use cases such as Amazon RDS replication
• Visual mapping and wizards: Supplying you with a graphical UI that eliminates the need for manual coding as well as task-based wizards that make setting up and managing data pipelines easier
• Automation: Automatically generating target database schemas based on metadata definitions in your sources and dynamically replicating DDL changes made to source tables to help save you time
• Log-based change data capture: Enabling you to detect and capture changes made to your source data and apply them to your target databases or data warehouses via incremental load or real-time streaming

Powerful, Quick-to-Deploy Database Replication Software from Qlik

Qlik, a leading provider of data integration and big data management software solutions, has developed a powerful yet easy-to-use high-performance data replication and data ingestion platform for the enterprise. Combining our unique log-based change data capture technology and database replication software with a flexible data ingestion framework, Qlik Replicate® provides you with optimized connectivity for a broad range of enterprise data sources—including all major relational databases, Hadoop distributions, mainframes, and data warehouses—plus low-impact, low-latency data integration capabilities.

Qlik Replicate features an intuitive Click-2-Replicate designer that streamlines integration tasks and lets you configure your data feeds though a drag-and-drop interface. By automating the end-to-end replication process—including schema generation and DDL changes—Qlik Replicate helps you get more done in less time and with less chance of manual error. Our platform is also highly scalable, allowing you to scale up quickly to support high-volume, high-velocity big data projects, and cloud-friendly, offering you optimized, automated data loading for AWS SQL Server replication and other cloud data integration tasks through Qlik CloudBeam.